#Makevember Post 03 – Turbine Blades

Following on from my previous Makevember posts… This is another virtual post, I built the Wind Turbine Hub as designed by Daniel Davis, one of the changes I would like to make, is the methord of making the blades.

It looks like Daniel has a background in Mechanical Engineering, and uses Solidworks for his designs, while I am an Electronics Engineer (with a specalisum in the black magic of EMC) and use Fusion 360. I found a SolidWorks Aerofoil guide from Durham University which looked intresting, I also found a Fusion 360 NACA airfoil generator.

I don’t have a huge amount of experiance with aerodynamics design or CFD, however I found Michael Duffy from Georgia Institute of Technology’s thesis ‘Small wind tubines, mounted to existing structures‘, and Thesis presentation; where he mentions that his design is optimised for a 3 bladed ‐ 6 foot diameter turbine with an output of 1 kW rated @ 25 mph, I am going to be making mine a lot smaller. his design used SG6050, SG6051 Airfoils, which are tailored for low Reynolds number and are  used on other small wind turbines, and with his desgn being optimised for for low wind speed environment (~10 mph), with a tip speed ratio of 5.6:

The Problem I have come accross at this point is that SG6051 is not accepted by the NACA airfoil generator in a useful way 🙁

I have nothing to show for this Makevember Post, as I was un-sucsesfull, however I will try again, I would also apprecate any help that can be given.